---
title: “Then,” said the little girl, “I'll spill the milk,” so she dropt th… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Then,” said the little girl, “I'll spill the milk,” so she dropt the pitcher and spilt the milk. Who acts: little girl, girl. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/30/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/) / 30

# English Fairy Tales, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Then,” said the little girl, “I'll spill the milk,” so she dropt the pitcher and spilt the milk.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little girl, girl · **What happens:** say, spill, dropt, spilt · **To what, where:** milk, pitcher · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little girl, girl), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:19:30
# text = “Then,” said the little girl, “I'll spill the milk,” so she dropt the pitcher and spilt the milk.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	spill	spill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	dropt	dropt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	pitcher	pitcher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	spilt	spilt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little girl |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **spill** *in a quote* | future | the little girl *= girl* | the milk |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location milk=Theme |
| 3 | **dropt** | infinitive | girl | the pitcher |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **spilt** | past | the little girl *not said here* | the milk |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/31/)
- ↑ back to [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/)